


Equinox

by battle_cat



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Cunnilingus, Exhibitionism, F/F, F/M, Furiosa is the most eaten out character in fandom history, Multi, Multiple Orgasms, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Past Rape/Non-con, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Relationship Status: It's Complicated, Smut, Threesome - F/F/M, Vaginal Sex, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-05 14:54:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5379290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/battle_cat/pseuds/battle_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Furiosa/Toast and Furiosa/Max and the possibility of Furiosa/Toast/Max, but everything is complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Furiosa, Toast, Max

**Author's Note:**

> A continuation of the Furiosa/Toast story begun in [Solstice](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5302469). I debated adding chapters to that fic, but I think it's a complete story as is, and this is a different one.
> 
> While it's not strictly necessary to read Solstice to understand what's going on here, you should, because it's a good story.

They’ve ended up in Furiosa’s room this time, in the quiet hours after dinner when the Citadel stills, when anyone without a light source in their room has few practical choices but sleep.

They are not sleeping.

They are tangled up in sweaty sheets, Furiosa on her back, her hand clenched into Toast’s hair that she’s started to grow out and twist into dreads, as Toast licks and sucks and fucks into her with her tongue.

Toast has never considered herself one to shy away from conquering a task she wanted to master, and this is a skill she had attacked with the same intensity as learning guns and driving and fighting, working out by determined trial and error what made Furiosa moan and twitch, how a slow tease could wind her up and a hard suck on her clit could almost always get her off.

She’s already made her come once and is working her up to the verge of a second orgasm, her leg muscles just starting to shake, when there’s a heavy thud of someone trying to open the door and running up against the bolt.

They both jump. Toast whips around, even though the door is bolted, suddenly very aware of the sloppy mess on the bottom half of her face.

There’s a series of knocks and Furiosa lets out a groan that turns into a laugh.

“You schlanger,” she says loud enough to be heard outside the door. And to Toast’s mortification she scrambles out of bed and heads for the door, naked and flushed with wetness dripping down her thighs.

Toast barely has time to scramble under the sheets and swipe a hasty hand across her chin before Furiosa opens the door for Max, covered in wasteland dirt and grit.

Max’s eyes flick from naked, sweaty Furiosa, a fresh line of hickeys along her collarbone, to Toast curled up in the bed. Her guard comes up, just the tiniest bit, even though she knows it shouldn’t; it’s Max; Furiosa has told her that he knows and he doesn’t mind, and it’s not up to him who she takes into her bed in any case.

But Max merely looks mildly amused. And…maybe a bit turned on.

“And how long were you standing out there, listening to us?” Furiosa asks, hand on her hip.

Max raises his eyebrows. “Mm. No idea what you’re talking about.”

He lets his pack slide onto the floor by the door.

Furiosa settles back on the bed, blithely naked, wraps her half-arm around Toast and tugs her up to curl against her, as Max goes about stripping off jacket and removing weapons, placing guns and knives in a neat row on the work bench, dipping a cloth in the bowl of wash water and scrubbing the worst of the desert grit from his face and hands and beard.

He hasn’t been out in the wasteland so long as to be the feral thing he is when he comes back sometimes, but he’s still sweaty and stinky, his normal scent dialed up two or three times in intensity. Toast can smell him from the other side of the room, and she’s sure Furiosa can too.

At some point he glances over at them. “Don’t let me interrupt,” he says with a twitch of a smile.

Furiosa is idly stroking Toast’s back under the sheet, and she has that mischievous look in her eyes, and oh, Toast is in trouble now, because that’s the look that can convince her to do pretty much anything.

“I think Max would like watching you make me come,” Furiosa says, soft but clear enough that Max can hear it on the other side of the room. Toast can’t help noticing that whatever fidgeting around Max has been doing with his guns has stilled.

The idea of being watched—no, choosing to let someone watch—it makes her flush. But not in an entirely unpleasant way.

“I would like it too,” Furiosa says. “If you want to.” Her fingers trail all the way down Toast’s back and up again. “I think you could make me come very hard.”

She is not paying attention to Max right now; she is looking straight at Toast, and the way she says it makes it sound like a dare. And…well…Toast is not one to back down from a dare.

Toast presses her lips just beneath Furiosa’s solar plexus, and Furiosa smiles. “Max, come here,” she says without looking away from Toast.

Max settles down against the wall next to the edge of the mattress. And something about the matter-of-fact way he does it, as if this is a thing that’s happening and he just happens to be along for the ride, calms whatever skitter of nerves runs under her skin. Still—

“You can touch her if you want, but not me,” Toast says. Because she wants Furiosa, and Furiosa wants Max, but she’s not yet sure how she feels about the third leg of this triangle.

Max holds up both hands, a gesture of compliance. 

It occurs to her that she could just ignore him. 

And the idea of him sitting here and _just watching_ while she and his lover do whatever they please with each other, not as a performance for him but because they want to—oh, okay, now _that_ is kind of hot.

She turns away from Max’s gaze and kisses Furiosa. Slides up so she can cup her face with both hands, devour her lips, push her tongue into her mouth, and Furiosa meets her intensity eagerly, dragging nails down her back.

She noses her way under Furiosa’s jawline and mouths at her neck, where her pulse races, sucking hard enough to leave a mark. Slides down with a hot trail of kisses and traces her tongue around a nipple, hears Furiosa whimper when she closes her mouth over it and sucks.

Some kind of sound huffs out of Max, too, but she pays him no mind.

She licks slow kisses down Furiosa’s stomach, tasting sweat, making her arch with anticipation. Traces her fingers through the patch of dark curly hair between her legs, sucks a mark on her inner thigh, puts her mouth everywhere but where Furiosa wants it until she squirms.

The first lick into her makes her yelp, a slow teasing fuck with her tongue, and the shudder and the cry that come out of Furiosa when her mouth finally finds her clit makes Toast think this was the right decision after all.

 

Max can’t say this thought has never crossed his mind, once he learned that Furiosa had another lover, but—holy fuck—he couldn’t possibly have imagined. The way she tilts her head toward him so he catches every pant and moan and breathless twist of her face, the powerful curve of her body and the thin sheen of sweat on her breasts, and the way they move when she rocks, the sight of her hand clenching someone else’s hair as Toast works between her legs—it is the hottest fucking thing.

He realizes he’s stroking himself outside his pants and forces himself to stop; he’s about two Furiosa noises from coming in his shorts and he wants to last long enough to find out where this goes next.

She keeps making eye contact, a wordless desire for his touch, and _oh_ , he wants to touch her so badly…he reaches out and just brushes his fingers against her cheek. She cranes toward him, hungry for more, and he slips his thumb into her mouth; he’s sure it still tastes like wasteland grit despite the wash, but she sucks on it eagerly, her eyes locked on his.

 

Furiosa is dizzy, suspended between Toast’s devilish tongue and Max’s soft hand on her face, the feeling of his blunt thumb between her lips.

Toast is licking in just the right spot, over and over, making her legs tremble and every once in a while giving her a teasing suck that brings her so close to the edge—but not over—and Max—gods, she wants more of him—she makes a mewling noise and hopes he understands. She writhes and squirms and she feels Toast wrap her hands around her thighs; her tongue is inescapable. 

Max leans over her— _finally_ —and she twists, desperate to get a taste of his mouth, and when he kisses her, hot and intense, the taste of salt and dust on his lips just winds her up more; she bites his bottom lip and his hand trails down over her breast just as Toast’s licks finally drive her over the edge and she comes, a long shuddery pulse that leaves her groaning into his mouth.

 

Toast doesn’t think she’ll ever get tired of the feeling of Furiosa clenching and leaking into her mouth, the way the muscles in her powerful thighs shudder and twitch as she teases out every last aftershock until Furiosa whimpers and squirms away, and she finally lets her.

When she looks up from between Furiosa’s legs both she and Max look equally flushed, and a little swell of pride stirs in her.

Furiosa sits up and pulls her into a heated kiss, licking her own taste out of her mouth, but then Max’s lips are on her neck and his hands are on her waist and Toast feels it, the way everything in her body turns toward him.

“I’d like Max to fuck me now,” Furiosa says. Of course she does; she’s wanted it since he came in the door.

“Take your clothes off before you get in the bed,” she says to Max. “You’re filthy.” Max mutters something barely audible as he peels off his shirt, but Toast could swear it’s _show you filthy_.

He has a tattoo on his back—from the Blood Shed; of course he does; she’s just never seen it before. The bottom is heavily scratched, as if he clawed at it while it was healing. If he minds her seeing this vulnerable part of him, he keeps the minding hidden.

Furiosa nips at Max’s side, distracting him while he unbuttons his pants; her attention has moved on just as clearly as it was focused on Toast a minute ago.

She moves to slide out of the bed. Furiosa catches her wrist. 

“You could stay,” she says, a small smile on her lips and the intensity of her gaze back on Toast, just for a moment. “You could watch, too.”

It’s more out of curiosity than anything else that Toast curls up on the edge of the mattress as Max flops into the bed next to her.

And _oh_ …the sound Furiosa makes when Max grabs her around the waist and wrestles her down, a shriek and a peal of laughter—Toast has never heard her laugh like that—and the delighted little _mmph_ as Max smothers the laughter with a kiss…the way she seems to go easy under him when he slides on top of her, letting go of tension Toast hadn’t even seen until it was released…the casual way he slides a hand under her knee and puts her legs where he wants them, wrapped high and tight around his torso, as if they’ve both slipped into some unspoken mode of communication that Toast didn’t even know was Furiosa’s native tongue.

Max seems as unconcerned about paying attention to her as she was to him, turning his face away as he guides his cock into Furiosa and rocks, slow and deep, getting breathy little moans out of her. And while the movement of muscles under his skin is…not at all aesthetically unpleasant, it’s Furiosa’s face that holds her attention, her half-closed eyes and parted lips and the lazy smile of bliss.

Furiosa whispers something in Max’s ear and he rumbles one of his non-words in return, and then they’re shifting, Max climbing behind her and Furiosa turning on her side to face Toast, Max guiding her leg up over his so he can slide into her from behind.

His arm is around her ribs, a firmer grip than Toast would ever dare to give her, and his other hand wanders down to press two fingers against her clit, just lightly, and his thrusts from this angle are shorter, but from the gasp that comes out of Furiosa every time he rolls his hips they are hitting her in just the right spot.

Toast can tell Furiosa is trying to give her a show by the way her eyes find her and latch on, but she keeps getting distracted by sensation, her focus shaken loose between Max’s cock and his hand, and that is hotter than anything. It makes Toast wish she could fuck her like that, makes her slip a hand between her legs as she imagines doing it, and Furiosa sees her doing it and a smile quirks on her lips; it seems to spur her on, and every once in a while Max’s gaze will catch hers, and she doesn’t mind him watching her touch herself, but it doesn’t particularly do anything for her; she’s imagining being able to push into Furiosa from behind and hear her breath catch with every thrust.

Max is speeding up and her gasps are becoming cries, and at some point Toast forgets about touching herself and just watches them, because Furiosa is incredible, arched back and overwhelmed with pleasure. Just before she’s about to come she whimpers and her face scrunches up and she tries to close her legs, as if it’s too much, and Max just hooks a leg around hers, gentle but so clearly in control, keeping her open while he grinds his fingers down on her clit, and the sound that comes out of her is unmistakable ecstasy.

When she comes she’s flush-faced and crying out, eyes squeezed shut, but she has a dizzy grin on her face, pure euphoria, and something else underneath, something that if Toast had to put a name to she would call relief.

It’s not like anything Toast has ever seen when they’re fucking, and it makes her ache.

Max is sliding out of her, soft now, and she’s rolling onto her back to kiss him, loose-limbed and drunk with pleasure, and between kisses and heaving breaths she whispers, “Missed you,” against his lips.

She’s already getting drowsy, and Max curls up against her back as if they’d been meant to fit together that way all along, and Toast is torn between stay and go.

Furiosa decides for her, reaching out a hand to curl into hers. “Sleep here,” she murmurs as Max nuzzles against her neck.

And because she can’t explain the strange hollow feeling in her belly, she lets Furiosa tug the sheet over them one-handed, nudge her closer to them with her half-arm so she can rest a sweaty forehead against hers.

 

Toast stays awake long after Max and Furiosa fall asleep, breathing in tandem beside her, turning over the sharp edges of discomfort inside her and trying to find their source.

Because she can’t shake the feeling that all those times, in the garden and the repair bay and in Furiosa’s bed and hers, she hadn’t really seen her, that what she thought was vulnerability was just a finer layer of armor, and that she had finally seen Furiosa stripped raw and open, and it hadn’t been for her.


	2. Toast, Max

Toast wakes up to the sound of rustling sheets and Furiosa giggling.

Fucking _giggling_.

She feigns sleep until deep, rhythmic breathing and the sound of Furiosa’s soft “ohh,” get the better of her.

She opens her eyes to see Max tucked under Furiosa’s arm, mouthing at the soft underside of her breast while her fingers trail idly through his hair.

“See? You woke her.”

“You’re noisy,” Max mumbles against her breast.

“You’re responsible.”

She tugs playfully at his hair and he nips at the soft skin between breast and armpit in retaliation. She squeaks.

She inclines her head toward Toast, and her smile looks so much more open and wide this morning. “You should try his mouth. It’s very nice.”

“Better than mine?” She tries to make it come out light and teasing.

“It’s not a competition.” Furiosa slides over, closing the distance between them. “I love your mouth, and everything you do with it.” She kisses it, a whisper of tongue and breath before she pulls away. “Hard to use it on yourself, though.”

She curls back into Max’s arms, her fingers returning to his hair. “I think you would like him, is all.”

“Mm. Just giving away my parts now, are we?” Max mutters, his kisses on her shoulder now.

“As if you wouldn’t like it too.” She pinches his earlobe, and his teeth land on her shoulder, soft at first, but then increasing the pressure until she huffs out a sharp exhale of breath.

“Bath,” she murmurs. “Let’s go.”

She looks over at Toast as they slide out of bed together. “Join us?” Her smile is warm and inviting, and Toast tries to copy it.

“You go.”

 

Her Sisters all sleep on the same hallway, the old Imperators’ quarters, and who ends up in whose room at night is never secret for long. At breakfast they surround her.

“Did you do it with both of them?”

“No, just with her. And then she did it with him. But…I watched.”

“What’d they do with each other?”

“That’s _private_.”

“What’s his schlanger look like?” That’s Dag. Toast chokes a little on her root mash.

“I dunno…normal?”

“Are you gonna do it with him?”

“I dunno.”

“But you could? If you wanted to?”

“She kinda suggested that. Don’t even know if he wants to, though.”

“Why wouldn’t he? You’re shine and you can fight and shoot and stuff.”

“ _Do_ you want to do it with him?”

“I would,” Cheedo pipes up. Dag’s eyebrows go up. 

Cheedo shrugs. “Just to see what it’s like, you know, with a man who’s nice to you. He wouldn’t make you do stuff you don’t want to. And…he has a nice back. Got lots of muscles.”

“Since when you’ve been noticing his back?”

 

She waits until Furiosa is at Council meeting.

Max isn’t in the garage and he isn’t up in the gardens. She finds him in Furiosa’s room, organizing ammo and meticulously stripping down his collection of weapons, cleaning days of wasteland dust out of them.

Furiosa’s guns are laid out on the table as well, retrieved from their hiding spots around the room, except for the SKS, which is still hanging on the wall. There are a few Toast has never seen before.

“Hey,” he says simply when she enters, and she gives him a nod. If he has any feelings about how they’re supposed to interact after fucking the same woman last night, he keeps them to himself.

She closes the door and puts the bolt on it. Why is her heart suddenly pounding?

 _Just go and sit next to him_ , she thinks, and she makes herself do it, settling on the end of the bench.

“Not at Council?” he asks without looking up from his work.

“Politics…not really my thing.”

“Mm. Me neither.”

“Don’t think it’s really her thing, either. But…everyone looks to her.”

“Mm.”

 _Quit stalling_ , the voice inside her head hisses. _What are you, afraid?_

She is not afraid. She is not. It’s just a bit different without the buffer of Furiosa between them.

The thing is that she’s not even sure how this will help calm the too-tight feeling in her solar plexus that’s been there since last night. It’s just that…she can’t think of anything else to do…and Furiosa seems to want it…and maybe if she does it with him she’ll understand what it is that he does for her. Maybe it’s something she can learn to do too.

Max keeps working on his guns, no indication that he expects anything from her, not even conversation.

He’s waiting for her to make the first move. 

Of course he is.

Sometimes she wishes he were just a bit more like other men.

She takes a deep breath and tugs her shirt off. Something indeterminate flickers over his face as he catches her bare skin out of the corner of his eye. He puts down the gun he’s working on, but doesn’t move other than that.

Before she can lose her nerve, she slides over so her thigh is resting against his and mutters, “Let’s see what you’ve got, Rockatansky.”

She leans in and presses a soft kiss on his freshly-shaven jaw.

There’s another twitch on his face and she’s not sure if he’s reacting to the kiss or just trying to figure out how she knew the second part of his name.

She kisses him again, the sensitive spot under his ear. He swallows.

“Hey.” It’s more questioning this time, his eyes searching her face. She thrusts her jaw out and meets his gaze without blinking.

He leans in and she flinches before she can stop herself, a reflex beyond her control. He pulls back.

“Sorry,” she says. _Fuck._

“You don’t have to. If you don’t want—”

“I want to,” she growls, and she wishes he would stop giving her that searching look and just get on with it. “Stop fucking around.”

He makes a small noise and leans toward her again, and this time she successfully controls the flinch, long enough to let him press his lips gently against hers.

It’s not so bad. His lips are warm and plush, and when he nudges her mouth open for the soft exploration of his tongue she doesn’t stop him. One big hand is a gentle press at the back of her neck, and she’s thankful for it because it helps her resist the lingering urge to pull away.

The other hand traces over her cheek, down her neck, over the soft skin between her breasts, and if she focuses on her breathing she can keep herself from flinching at all.

He breaks the kiss and pulls back, just goddamn _looking_ at her again.

“You’re shaking,” he says.

“It’ll stop.” 

He licks his lips, moves away from her. “Don’t want to…if you’re not there.”

“I’m _trying_ ,” she grits out. Why couldn’t he just be like the boys from home, who had just let her drift off while they did what they wanted? They had always liked it plenty, and it was fine for her even if they didn’t know so much about what made a woman feel good.

She _knows_ he knows how to make her feel good, and he wouldn’t hurt her, and—ugh, why is he making this so goddamn complicated?

“Don’t you want me?” she spits out.

A little flicker on his face, and she could swear it looked like pain. “Not when you’re scared.”

“I am _not_ scared.” She growls in frustration. “Can’t you just—just do what you like? I wouldn’t mind.”

“Mm. I would mind.” Ugh, the look on his face—it’s not even pity; that would be easy enough to be angry at him for. He just looks hurt, and sad.

She turns away so she doesn’t have to look at him, biting her lip hard. Hears him make some motion behind her and then something falls over her shoulders, heavy rough fabric and the scent of desert and guzzoline and Max.

She pulls the leather jacket around her as he goes to retrieve her shirt from the floor. He folds it and places it on the bench next to her, then sits down far enough away from her to give her some space. Resumes working on the gun he was cleaning.

She’s still biting her lip to keep the broken strangled noise she wants to make trapped inside, because damn it all to hell if she’s going to double down on her humiliation by doing something like _crying_.

He slides the cloth with the pieces of the disassembled Glock laid out on it toward her. “Know how to put that one together, right?”

She breathes in and out once, to make sure her voice will be steady. “Yeah.”

She wriggles her shirt back on, laying the jacket carefully on the bench between them, and starts putting the gun back together. Having something to do with her hands is calming.

A long moment goes by without either of them talking. When she’s finished with the Glock he slides over the Luger while he takes apart the shotgun that normally rests against the wall near Furiosa’s bed.

“Was it like that, the first time with Furiosa?” he asks eventually.

“No, no.” She swallows. “That was different.” So different, all heat and electricity and want pulsing deep inside her. It seems silly to even put the experiences in the same category.

“So it’s just. With men.”

“So far.” And it burns her, that she doesn’t even _know_ , if it’s some men or all men, if it always would have been like that or if it would have been different if she hadn’t been—

“Y’know you don’t have to fuck me just because she does. ‘S not a requirement.”

“I know.”

He snaps the barrel of the shotgun back into place. “F’you ask me, not a bad idea to have two of us. Wears me out sometimes.”

She can't help but feel a twitch of a smile at that. “She’s…got a lot of energy.”

“Mm.”

She stands and picks up the shotgun, and Furiosa and Ace have drilled the reflex into her enough that she checks the breach even though she just saw Max cleaning it unloaded.

“Wanna learn that one next?” Max asks.

“Wanna learn _that_ one.” She nods at the SKS on the wall. She’s asked, but Furiosa says she needs to make her arms stronger first.

“Hmm. No one touches that unless she hands it to you.” He shifts around on the bench. “Let’s see your stance.”

She lifts the shotgun. It’s _heavy_ , a weapon suited to Furiosa’s long arms and broad shoulders. It will take practice.

“Not bad,” Max says. “Just—your shoulders, bring your shoulders—” He’s on his feet, gesturing, and she adjusts something but she can tell it’s not exactly what he meant.

“Easier if I can touch you. But…don’t have to.”

“It’s okay.” This feels different, more solid somehow, and not just because she has a gun in her hands, even though it’s unloaded. This is a skill that he can teach and she can learn, and that’s something she knows how to do.

“Shoulders…here.” His hands rest on her shoulders, moving them back and down. “Use your core. And your hips…like this.”

And she finds she doesn’t mind it, when his hands are on her stomach showing her where to keep the muscles strong, or on her hips adjusting her stance. It’s different, being touched by a man who isn’t after sex. It’s not so bad.

“There. Better,” he says. “Still got a kick, but that’ll help. Could go out to the practice range later, f’you like.”

“Yeah. I’d like that.”

And because she doesn’t know how to say any of the things she wants to say, she puts the gun down against the wall and hugs him.

A tiny startle runs through him and she feels him contain it. _I’m not the only one who flinches_ , she thinks, and it loosens something, just a little, inside her.

He wraps his arms around her, solid and warm but not confining. She can feel his heartbeat through his shirt, and he’s just the right height to rest his chin on the top of her head.

He doesn’t move, holding her as long as she wants, and this is…nice. It’s nice. She would do this again with him, she thinks.

“Don’t tell her, okay? Just…tell her…we decided we don’t want to…with each other,” she says into his shirt.

She feels his hum as much as hears it. “F’you want.” A pause. “But, f’you did wanna tell her, she’d understand. She cares about you.”

 _I know_ , Toast thinks. _But she doesn’t love me._


	3. Toast, Furiosa

At dinner Toast chooses the side of the bench opposite Furiosa and Max. (He always sits with his back against the wall, always, even though the tension in his shoulders and the skitter in his gaze is a shadow of what it used to be.)

And now she can’t help noticing all the tiny things, like the way they sit pressed against each other so easily, the way he deposits the bits of the hard bitter root he doesn’t care for into her bowl when she isn’t looking, and the way she makes sure to top off his water cup every time she refills hers from the pitcher on the table.

Furiosa has marks on her neck and shoulder from last night, from both of their mouths, and Toast remembers when she used to hide them, after Max first came back, but she seems utterly unconcerned with it now. When Max slides an arm around her waist toward the end of the meal she relaxes into it.

The moment inevitably comes when everyone’s leaving the dining hall and Furiosa catches her eye. Max’s arm is still around her waist and they’re clearly heading up the passageway in the direction of her room. Furiosa inclines her head, an invitation.

“I—” Why does her mouth suddenly feel full of sand? “I think you should be with Max tonight. Just the two of you,” Toast hears herself say, as if her voice is far away from her.

There’s a momentary wrinkle in Furiosa’s brow but she says, “If that’s what you want.”

 

She heads for the repair bay, looking for distraction. Spanner has shown her what needs to be done on the new rig’s engine, the modifications they decided on after the test run, and she tends to work better when she doesn’t have someone more knowledgeable to turn to, when she has no choice but to figure it out for herself.

She can ask Furiosa to check it in the morning.

She tries to focus on the work and not think of anything else. But her thoughts keep drifting back to another time, _that_ other time, when it had been both her and Furiosa underneath the rig, sweaty and reaching over each other in close quarters.

They had worked past the noon meal, into the afternoon hours when the bay got blazingly hot, and most of the blackthumbs retreated back to their bunks for an afternoon nap. They had emerged from under the engine to find the bay completely empty.

It had only taken a split second for Furiosa to push her back against the door of the rig.

It hadn’t been their first time, but new enough still that every kiss and touch and sensation was molten-hot and charged with discovery.

Furiosa had seemed to need more intensely than usual that afternoon. Had pulled Toast up into the backseat of the rig—not as spacious as the War Rig, but big enough for two. Laid her down on the seat and ground down on her hand from above, and Toast had been shocked to get all her fingers inside of her. Put her mouth on her until Toast bit down on her wrist to keep from screaming, and then pulled her up while she was still dizzy and breathless and made her come again with her long, strong fingers inside her while she whispered dirty things in her ear.

It had been the day after Max left on a mission, she remembers now.

_Dammit._

She presses her legs together as she works, and tries to ignore the feeling the memory stirs in between them.

 

She stays in the repair bay until the lamp burns low and her eyes are too fuzzy to concentrate on the small parts, until she thinks they must certainly be asleep.

But as if the universe is mocking her, she hears Furiosa’s gasping little cries—holy hell, do the two of them _ever_ stop?—as she drags herself down the hall to her room.

She has to pass their door to get to hers, and she shouldn’t—she shouldn’t—but she lingers, just long enough to hear a breathless “ _unghyes—like that—_ ” from Furiosa, and then she’s storming down the hall to her room.

She slams the door and paces and wants to scream but she’s also pulsing with want, and because that’s the only frustration she can do something about she kicks off her pants and flops down on her bed and burns and burns with a hand between her legs, and it’s only after she brings herself to a rough shuddering climax that she feels the tears on her cheeks.

 

Furiosa is the one who brings it up, the next morning in the repair bay after she’s checked over Toast’s work on the engine and found it impeccable.

“Did I make you uncomfortable? The other night, when it was the three of us?” They’re on the side of the rig nearest the wall, away from the bustle of the repair bay, but she keeps her voice quiet.

Toast swallows, suddenly unable to meet Furiosa’s gaze. “No.”

“Did Max make you uncomfortable?”

“No.”

“He told me…said you weren’t interested in men. If you don’t like him being—”

“It’s not that. I—” It’s like speaking with glass in her throat, but if she doesn’t say it now she never will. “When you’re with him. You’re so happy. And I feel like…like I’m your _spare_.”

She studies the hem of her shirt for a moment, and when she looks up Furiosa is sitting on the runner board of the rig, and her face has crumpled somehow, brow furrowed. She turns a wrench over between her flesh and metal hands.

“I don’t think of you like that,” she says very quietly. “I like you. I like both of you.”

“But not the same.” Her hands tingle, her face feels numb, but she plows ahead. “You’re in love with Max, and you like having sex with me.”

The second in which Furiosa doesn’t say anything to correct her lasts forever.

“I do like having sex with you,” Furiosa says finally, and her voice is oddly husky and soft. “Very much. Can’t we just have that?”

She ventures a glance at Toast’s face, and whatever she sees there makes her look down at the wrench in her hand again.

“I never got to like it, you know?” she says, a little twitch of a sad smile on her face. “Didn’t know…if I even could. And…I can now. And I like that I can.” She presses her lips together. “But if I—” She breaks off, and it takes her a moment to get started again. “If you felt that…that I was… _using_ you…. I wouldn’t want that.”

She is folded in on herself, and she suddenly looks strangely small, and Toast feels like all the air is gone from the room.

Furiosa takes a breath before starting the next part.

“It wasn’t easy, for me to get close to Max. It was hard. It took time.”

Another breath.

“I want you. I care about you. I like your body, and I like the things you do to me. That’s—that’s what I can give you now. But…if it’s not enough—” Her jaw clenches for a brief moment. “I understand.”

She takes her flesh hand off the wrench for a moment, and it is shaking. She clenches it hastily to conceal it.

Toast wants to reach out and touch her. Smooth the wrinkles out of her brow, fold up in her strong arms and feel the steady heartbeat against her cheek. But if she does that now she will get pulled back into her slipstream and she will never work it out for herself, what she wants and what she deserves and what she’s just being swept along with.

Toast forces herself not to reach for her, to make her voice even before she speaks. “I need to think.”

Furiosa closes her eyes and nods, and it twists her insides to think that maybe she was hoping for easy comfort too.

She wants so badly to just put a hand on her shoulder, but she makes herself walk out of the repair bay without doing it.

 

War Boys have shown her all the secret high ledges, the places where you can go when you need someplace quiet and alone. She finds an isolated perch and sits and thinks, turning it all over inside her and trying to work it out, even though it makes her head buzz and her heart ache.

 _If you felt like I was using you_ , Furiosa had said, with that look on her face like the idea caused her physical pain.

No. She hadn’t. She _didn’t_. She was the one who had pursued Furiosa, and everything that had happened, she had wanted. And still did.

It was just that she wanted more. And she knew, even if she decided not to share a bed with the two of them, that she would feel the missing piece the next time she was alone with Furiosa. She couldn’t not.

Did she want this part if she couldn’t have the other? Not now, and maybe not ever? Would it be too painful, or would it be worse to not have any of it at all?

It was all a mess of confusion in her head, and the worst part is that the person she would have wanted to ask for advice was Furiosa.

Furiosa, who had always seemed unbreakable, a force of nature, the storm that had scoured all the filth from this place. Strong and self-assured, easy and confident in her own body in all the ways Toast wanted to be, so willing to match her desire once it was offered.

It had never occurred to her that Furiosa would be damaged too, that she would have parts that had been broken or stripped or rusted over with disuse. 

She feels a prickle of shame at her own shortsightedness.

Toast knows to lift her head and square her shoulders when someone doubts her because of her breasts or her youth or her small stature. Furiosa had always seemed to operate as if her control and self-control were a foregone conclusion, like gravity, as if she already knew by looking that you were going to follow her. 

But maybe she is just better at performing.

She thinks of Max, taking care of all the weapons in Furiosa’s room, as if they were his own. A small task taken off her list without fuss, a tiny bit of weight lifted even though she didn’t ask for it.

Had she unthinkingly been putting extra weight on her shoulders, yearning for something she wasn’t able to give?

Is that what Max had seen that she had not—the cracks that needed filling, the strain that needed to be eased? And how had he seen it in a few days’ time when Toast had not noticed it in hundreds?

It makes her angry, to think of all the time _stolen_ from her, trapped in a glass cage, when she could have been learning so many things. How to know what she doesn’t want; how to know what she does want and how to ask for it. How to accept what someone else could give, even if it was only part of what you longed for.

There were so many things that needed fixing now, or building anew without schematics. It was overwhelming sometimes. 

She had counted on Furiosa to know what to do—she always seemed to know what to do—never stopping to think that Furiosa might be just figuring out the shape of these things herself.

If Furiosa didn’t know, what then?

 

She is still thinking about it at dinner that night.

She thinks about it as she watches her Sisters. 

Cheedo and Dag, wrapped up in each other without concern for what anyone else might think. 

Capable, who didn’t seem interested in having sex with anybody, but whose love and caring reached out to wrap around them all. Who had scooped up baby Angharad when Dag seemed more interested in growing green things, and loved her enough that her own breasts started making milk for her.

And Furiosa and Max, who had somehow found a way to let the other in, even though they still slept in a room full of weapons.

It was a miracle, really, that any of them could be close to anyone at all.

And if it wasn’t perfect or easy, wasn’t it at least worth it, to try to figure it out, together?

Cheedo stands up to clear away everyone’s dishes, and there’s an open spot on the bench beside Furiosa, and Toast stands up and slides into it. She can feel Furiosa’s attention on her even if her eyes are not.

She reaches out and takes Furiosa’s hand under the table, and feels her squeeze back, firm and solid and warm. Sees some of the fine lines on her face relax, just the tiniest bit.

When Furiosa and Max stand up from the table at the end of the night, she follows them.


	4. Toast, Furiosa, Max

They are in front of the door to Furiosa’s room, and there’s a moment when all three of them stop, and Toast knows she will be invited in and it’s up to her whether she chooses to go.

The hallway is blessedly empty for once.

“I would like to be with both of you,” Furiosa says softly. “If…you would have me.”

Her gaze flicks to Toast for a moment, and then down, and her flesh fingers are squeezing Max’s hand, and it occurs to Toast that it’s for reassurance. The idea that Furiosa could be _nervous_ about this, that she would ever doubt her own desirability, seems strange to her.

The first time had been by chance, and she’d been swept along in the moment before she thought too much about it. It’s different now that she has time to decide, and not just about what happens tonight.

And a part of her is scared, that she won’t be able to be satisfied and it will damage what she already has with Furiosa, the easy camaraderie and the trust of teacher and student and the pure physical desire, which is there, undeniably, no matter what else happens.

But…she also thinks…

There are so few good things that can be salvaged, and so little comfort to be had. It would seem a shame to discard whatever pleasure they could give each other, that which she has barely even begun to learn about, just because it wasn’t quite the shape she wanted.

Furiosa is waiting for her answer, her gaze still somewhere on the floor.

She wants her, this hard lethal woman who suddenly can’t look her in the eye. She does. In whatever way it can be. That much is clear.

“Yes,” she says. “Let’s try.”

A tentative smile spreads across Furiosa’s face, and she feels the warmth it stirs inside her, and she knows she would have regretted throwing that away.

 

She feels Furiosa’s attention on her like a physical heat as the three of them undress each other, her gaze like the sun as she pulls Toast’s shirt over her head between kisses. And it’s easy, like this, to stay present, to surrender to the physical and not think about the complicated bits. At least for tonight.

She lets her mouth trail down Furiosa’s bare back as Furiosa unbuckles Max’s pants one-handed, his kisses on her neck, and she feels the way Furiosa shivers when both their mouths and hands are on her, and Max catches her gaze briefly and she thinks he is noticing it too.

Furiosa turns away from him as she leads Toast to the bed, as if she trusts him to follow. She pulls Toast down onto her knees with a soft smile on her lips, and such warmth in her eyes that are sometimes blue and sometimes green, and the rest of the world may as well not exist.

She is kissing and kissing her, eager and heady, her half-arm hooked around the back of her neck while her hand traces heat everywhere over her skin, as if she wants to touch every inch of her. But when Toast trails her own hand up the inside of Furiosa’s thigh, she nudges it gently away. “Later,” she whispers into Toast’s ear. “Wanna make you come first.” She drags her fingernails across Toast’s back and she moans; she loves that, but Furiosa only has one hand to work with.

She’s lost track of Max entirely until she feels his weight shift from somewhere behind her. “Mm, can I—?” A light scratch of nails across her shoulderblade. “Just that. On your back?”

“Yes,” she breathes, because everything feels safer with Furiosa here, and she whimpers as the spark of his nails down her spine syncs up perfectly with the teasing trace of Furiosa’s finger along her sex. 

Out of the corner of her eye she can see them looking at each other over her shoulder, and she suddenly appreciates the benefits of being in bed with two people who read each other so well without words. Furiosa’s fingers are on her clit, slicking through growing wetness, her mouth finding the places that make her melt, her earlobe and the hollow under her jaw, Max’s fingers a crackling counterpoint, and before she knows it she can feel the wave of pleasure building up inside her between their hands.

She comes with a sharp cry, fingers digging into the muscles of Furiosa’s shoulders, and she doesn’t mind that it’s Max’s hands on her waist steadying her when she sways.

When she looks up, Furiosa has that teasing half-smile on her face. “I love watching you come,” she murmurs in Toast’s ear as her fingers slide deep inside her. Her half-arm hooks down under the curve of her ass to keep her from pulling away. “Do it again.”

She is lost to everything but Furiosa’s fingers moving inside her, the rough flick of her thumb against her clit, her mouth sucking hot and wet behind her ear. She doesn’t register that Max has moved until Furiosa exhales a sudden gasp against her skin and the rhythm of her fingers stutters. Toast feels something soft brush against her legs and realizes it’s Max’s hair and he’s got his mouth between Furiosa’s legs from underneath.

“Fool,” she huffs when something he does makes her arch. He hums a wordless response against her skin and she makes a sound that starts as a laugh and turns into a ragged moan when he pulls her down against his mouth.

Her fingers have stilled inside Toast, momentarily distracted by her own pleasure, and for a moment Toast is distracted too, watching her grind her hips against Max’s face, open-mouthed and gasping.

She leans forward and sucks one of Furiosa’s nipples into her mouth, relishing the small sound she makes at the added sensation, and then Furiosa’s attention is back on her and her fingers are working again, fast and rough the way she might touch herself, in a rhythm that matches the breathless little yelps coming out of her, as if the pleasure is a live circuit connecting all three of them.

Toast comes first, whimpering against Furiosa’s chest as she clenches and pulses around her fingers, and Furiosa is not far behind, a tumble of rough gasping cries as Max’s fingers dig into the flesh of her ass and Toast wraps her arms around her.

Toast is still breathless and dizzy and buzzing with the aftershocks of her own orgasm when Furiosa pushes her back onto the mattress and mutters, “More.” And before she can catch her breath the hot pulse of Furiosa’s tongue is making her squirm and writhe into the sheets all over again.

 

Furiosa is concentrating on tracing irregular little patterns over Toast’s clit with her tongue, relishing the taste of her and the way she arches against the sheets. She hasn’t kept track of what Max is doing until she feels his hand on her hip, and then the swipe of his cockhead through her folds.

Her _mmph_ of encouragement makes Toast twitch, and she forces herself to concentrate as Max slides into her, slow and deep. The position is filthy and the angle is _delicious_ , and the firm grip of his hands on her hips as he gives her slow rolling thrusts makes her tongue on Toast’s clit unconsciously speed up.

Toast shudders and moans as she wrings a third orgasm out of her, and then she squirms away out of pure overstimulation, leaving Furiosa to bury her face in the musky sheets as Max thrusts into her from behind.

Now that she’s not about to smack her face into someone’s pubic bone Max can fuck her as hard and fast as she likes, and he does, his fingers digging into the crease of her hips, skin slapping against skin as she makes every kind of unhinged noise there is.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Toast’s legs moving, but she doesn’t realize what’s happening until she feels a warm little hand slide under her stomach and find her clit.

“ _Oh_ —fuck you two—” she moans into the sheets, and Max just laughs and snaps his hips hard against her.

 

She climaxes with a long string of shouts and curse words, and Toast is about to back off but Max makes a “keep going” motion with his hand, so she keeps touching her, hears her surprised _ahh_ when she increases the pressure, gets a flash of a thumbs-up from Max before Furiosa is clawing the sheets and shaking apart all over again.

 

Furiosa is incoherent, swamped with pleasure and at the mercy of their hands, still; Toast is still playing with her when she feels hot breath on her side, then a sting of teeth as Toast bites down on the spot above her hip.

 _That’s a Max trick_ , she has time to think, before the next orgasm whites out everything.

 

They lie side by side in a sweaty tangle afterward, everyone’s heart rate slowly coming down, sticky and sleepy and sated. She can feel Max’s come dripping out of her onto the sheets, and a quiet echo of the sting where Toast bit her.

“Think we wore her out,” Max rumbles. She lifts her head enough to see him give Toast a wink across her body.

“You two are dangerous together,” she mutters into the sheets.

 

Toast wakes when Furiosa does in the night, a stifled gasp and a violent startle.

In the moonlight she sees Max’s outline shift softly to curl tighter against her, a sleepy hum against her neck. She’s not even sure if he really woke up.

Furiosa is facing her, eyes wide in the dark. Her hand reaches out and strokes her hair.

“I’m glad I didn’t lose you,” she whispers.

Toast bites her lip. “I still don’t know,” she says, because she thinks if this has any chance of working at all it will only be because she is honest, with herself and others. “If this will work or not. Everything is new.”

“For me, too.”

She slides her hand around Toast’s back, pulling her closer, until their foreheads touch.

“Don’t know…why you fools keep thinking I deserve you,” she murmurs drowsily, her breath brushing Toast’s face. “But I’m glad you do.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to do a version of Furiosa/Max/Toast where the relationships were a little more asymmetrical and complicated. This will probably be three chapters.


End file.
